


everything is new (at zero o'clock)

by starfishing (lovemarket)



Series: No darkness [...] can last forever [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Good Parent Janet Drake, Janet Drake Lives, Tim Drake is Robin, Tim Drake-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovemarket/pseuds/starfishing
Summary: Snapshots of Tim Drake's life, after the death of his father, Jack Drake.
Relationships: Janet Drake & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dana Winters
Series: No darkness [...] can last forever [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038926
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	everything is new (at zero o'clock)

**Author's Note:**

> there's a scene where tim is on a group phone call and janet texts bruce. i know that these weren't a thing during the time tim's robin run is set in but it made writing the scene more convenient.
> 
> thank you to   
>  [ thattimdrakeguy ](https://thattimdrakeguy.tumblr.com/)  
>  for allowing me to use a few of their points as scenes for the fic and   
>  [ steward-of-geekdom62 ](https://steward-of-geekdom62.tumblr.com/)  
>  for 1. sending the   
>  [ ask ](https://thattimdrakeguy.tumblr.com/post/634106536514437120/what-if-instead-of-tims-birth-father-jack-it-was)  
>  that started the discussion and 2. getting the gears turning on some things i used for the fic. the thread was really interesting and i definitely agree with a lot of the things that had been talked about. i felt that just a discussion wasn’t enough justice and decided to try to bring it to life :)

It starts when his parents get kidnapped. A lucky break when Batman saves his mother. His father? Not so lucky. 

The funeral comes and goes. Tim didn't really know his father. Tim was never really home, stuck at boarding school and on vacation weeks, his parents were more often than not in a different country on an archaeological dig for Drake Industries. Tim barely got more than five hours with them when the stars aligned and the three of them were home at the same time. 

Tim’s mom though? Somehow he feels like his mother got the short end of the stick. First, it was the coma. Then becoming a paraplegic. But it gets better. Until she makes significant progress with Dana, her physiotherapist, and tells Tim that they’re “getting their life back on track.”

She sits him down in the study and they have a talk, the kind that needs a capital T. Even with the progress, his mother still needs the wheelchair, not able to stand for long amounts of time just yet. 

Tim leans back into the leather couch, already not too happy with just the possible outcomes of their talk.

“I know these past months have been very hard on you… on us,” his mother begins, hands settled neatly on top of her thighs. Nothing will make Janet Drake look uncomposed, Tim thinks. Not even a discussion on how she admits her wrongs and takes full blame for them.

“Your father and I… When we were together, we were unfair to you, Tim.” She wheels closer to him. “Enrolling you in boarding school, going on digs every now and then. We should have _been_ there for you more. And now look what’s happened,” she sighs with a shake of her head.

“I hope you could forgive me, Tim. I want to make this right. I want to make up for the lost time that I’ll never get back and finally _be_ there for you. I want to see you walk in your cap and gown at high school and college graduation. Will you let me do that, Tim?” She asks, reaching over and putting a hand on top of his.

Tim bites his lip. He probably should be mad at his mother, because she’s right. His parents had fourteen years with him and they weren’t even there for every single day of them. But now he and his mother have tomorrow and the day after that, so he nods and lets himself get pulled into the first hug from his mother in a long, long time. Tim savors the feeling because he’s not sure when he’ll get another.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When Tim walks in through the front door, his mother’s voice floats through the hallway. He sighs and tries to think of a way around the sitting room. He’ll have to walk past it, as it’s the only way to get to the stairs but he _needs_ to put his duffel away first. And put some makeup over his blooming black eye. 

As he gets closer, he identifies the other voice as Dana. They’re not sitting in the immediate doorway so Tim quickly slips up the stairs to his room. “Too close,” he mutters to himself, throwing his duffel into the back of his closet and retreating to the bathroom. 

His weekend with the team in Happy Harbor was over though none of them came out of it unscathed. Luckily most of the blows Tim took could be covered with weather-appropriate clothes as it was getting colder out but there was no way for him to conceal the bruising on his eye. 

The coloring was getting darker and no amount of foundation or concealer was going to help. He couldn’t ask Ariana for some without her getting suspicious and he definitely didn’t match Steph’s tone. Not that he could drop by her house to ask either… It’s complicated. 

Finally having enough of grimacing at himself in the mirror, Tim knew he couldn’t even think about napping without telling his mother he got in. She thinks he’s at Ives’ for a sleepover which wasn’t completely wrong. He’d stopped by for a few this morning to play this new game that just released but most of his weekend was spent in Rhode Island with the team.

Tim bounds down the staircase, his plan being to go back to the front door and act like he’d just gotten in but by the time he gets to the last few steps, his mom and Dana are walking into a different room but his presence causes them to turn towards him.

“Tim! You got back!” Dana exclaims, her and his mom smiling. He smiles back, albeit a little small, knowing there’s no way he’ll get out this one.

“How was Sebastian’s hou-- What on Earth is wrong with your eye?” His mother walks up to him, gripping his face in her hands, pulling him close to inspect the damage. Tim suppresses a wince at his mother’s iron grip on his cheeks. They may still be a little chubby but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. 

His mother turns his face a couple of times, “I thought you said Sebastian’s parents were home?” She narrows his eyes at him. Tim swallows back a sigh. “It was nothing, we were just rough housing for a bit while playing the console and...” His voice trails off and he finishes with a lame shrug.

Dana chuckles softly, “You know how boys are, Janet. Getting worked up over those video games and everything.” Tim nods at Dana’s words, hoping it gets his mother off his case. But Tim guesses he expected too much.

“I’ll get you an ice pack and the first aid kit. How often do the two of you play fight? One day, you’ll end up with worse than just a black eye,” His mother goes on and on, even going as far as to imply that she won’t let Tim over Ives’ anymore which he groans at. “ _Mom_ , really it’s fine. Ives and I can cool it down if it really bothers you.”

His mom places the ice pack onto his eye, looking down at him. “It does. You can’t be coming home with black eyes and battle scars,” Tim winces at that. _She has no idea._ “It makes me worry.” She sighs, smoothing his hair down. Unconsciously, Tim leans into it. “You know I won’t let you back to his house next weekend right?”

Tim scoffs, “Mom!”

“Not until your eye heals!” She protests. Tim looks at Dana, silently pleading for her to help him out here. Dana huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. “Maybe Sebastian could come over here instead?” Dana helps, placing a hand on Janet’s shoulder. That wasn’t really the solution he was hoping she’d suggest because now he’ll have to figure out another excuse to get to Rhode Island next weekend.

He feels bad about lying, will probably never figure out how to stop letting the guilt eat away at him, but with his mother here, _finally_ , showering him in the affection and worry he’d craved for so long, Tim settles back in his chair. He lets his mom and Dana fret over him, shakes his head when his mother asks if he wants to go to urgent care or if he feels well enough for a bowl of soup (even though he’s not sick at all, just a little congested from the cold). 

As much as Tim hates to admit it, he loves the attention his mom is giving him and some part of him hopes she continues to worry over him like this, if it means he gets all the worried looks, extra care and forehead kisses he missed out on in his early childhood.

* * *

It’s not unlike Tim to leave his door closed these days, Janet has noticed. She’s not sure when it started but she trusts him not to be hiding anything and he usually isn’t. Though there is this _one_ girl he always brings up but then shuts his mouth as soon as he catches himself talking about her.

Dana thinks it’s just a little crush but Janet thinks it’s something more. So, she’s using laundry as an excuse to go through his room (and it’s almost a pigsty in there. It could use a little cleaning anyway). What Tim doesn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

Janet picks up the dirty clothes (how did she raise her child to be like this?) and throws them into the basket. It takes longer than she anticipated. When did Tim even get this many clothes? She sighs, a feeling of guilt washing over her for missing so much of her son’s life. He’s gotten so big and it all went right by her because she busied herself with other things. Things that she deemed more important than her own child instead of once in a lifetime milestones like his kindergarten graduation.

Speaking of, she hasn’t even thought about following up with Tim on whether or not he made the football team. She wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t, as he’s always been on the shorter side (no idea where he got that from, as she and Jack were quite tall), but she’s noticed that he’s been working out a lot lately. 

Janet moves on to his desk, despite only entering his room with the task of retrieving the dirty clothes and placing his clean laundry on the bed for him to fold when he gets home. She may clean his clothes but he needs to have _some_ chores to do besides washing the dishes and cleaning up every once in a while.

There’s a bunch of papers, some crumbled and ripping at the edges with chicken scratch on it (how does he even read it?) and there are others that are in pristine shape with grades on the top, school assignments that were previously turned in and given back. 

A picture frame next to his computer distracts her. She thinks it could be a friend from school but then she recognizes the person next to him as Richard Grayson. Since when had Tim become on speaking terms with Bruce Wayne’s son? Janet looks around the room more closely, eyes catching more picture frames and little things. 

There’s another frame of him and a whole group of people Janet has never seen before. Tim is sitting on a couch with a boy in sunglasses and studded leather jacket, a girl with black hair and bangs with goggles on top of her head, another boy with wild hair that looks like it had been blown by the wind, two blondes in matching school uniforms that Janet doesn’t recognize, and a black girl standing behind the couch, arms around as many shoulders as she could reach.

_I’ve never seen him smile that big before_ , she thinks, a ghost of a frown tugs at her lips as her gaze lingers on the photo for a while longer. 

Janet walks around his room, looking for more pictures. There’s a photobooth slide taped to the mirror on his closet door, this time just Tim, the boy with the leather jacket and the boy with the wild hair pulling crazy poses in each shot. On his dresser is a frame with him, Sebastian and Ariana, the only friends Janet knew Tim had. 

Tim never talked to her about anyone other than Sebastian and Ariana. Where had these other friends come from? When did he get on friendly terms with Bruce Wayne’s son? _What else was Tim hiding_ , Janet wondered, closing the door to his room when she exited.

There wasn’t even anyone she could consult with on this. Except Dana, maybe, but the woman had done so much for her with the therapy that Janet didn’t want to bother her with familial problems. Then again, Dana had taken a liking to Tim when she met him and they got along well those few times Janet insisted Dana stay for lunch after therapy sessions since getting out of the wheelchair.

Janet places the laundry basket next to the washer then heads back upstairs to get the phone. She needs some advice.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Out of all the things Tim has seen throughout his time as Robin, his mother standing in the Bat Cave holding a backup of his Robin suit with Alfred by her side was definitely not on the list of things he’d ever expected.

Her heels clicked in the cave like nails on a chalkboard. Tim had gone up against the most dangerous villains of Gotham like Killer Croc and even trained amongst the likes of Lady Shiva and he had made it out alive. But the look on his mother’s face as she walked up to him and Bruce had him feeling like he would lose his life within the next few minutes.

“What in the world are you doing with my son, Mister Wayne?” Janet asks, her voice icy and cold. It was the same tone of voice she would use when reprimanding employees at DI who had messed up something extremely important just before a major deadline. Tim suppressed a shiver.

Bruce stays silent, as do Tim and Alfred. What can they say? It’s pretty obvious. “You must be absolutely out of your mind if you think this is safe! Tim is only fourteen! And you’ve got him dressed like a traffic light putting his life on the line every night?”

Janet turns to her son, “And you.” She frowns. “Was I ever going to find out?” She asks, hand gripping the suit a little tighter. The only thought Tim has is that he doesn’t have to lie anymore, but he never meant for his mother to find out like _this_.

“I… I don’t know.” He mutters, just loud enough for Janet and Bruce to hear. She huffs out of her nose, dropping the suit onto the ground. “Home. We are going _home_ and you’re never returning to-to _whatever_ in God’s name this is.”

Tim almost recoils at the demand. “Mom, I can’t just _stop_!” 

Tim knew there would be a day he’d have to step down from Robin. It was never meant to be for this long, he used to tell himself. Bruce was getting better but he couldn’t leave _now_ , not when he’s been so deep in. He’s still got a couple of cases open and he can’t just leave Kon, Cassie, Bart and the others out of the blue. Dick won’t be Robin again. Jason can’t do it (literally), Cass has Batgirl and Steph is busy with the whole Spoiler thing (no matter how hard Tim tries to get her to stop). 

It _has_ to be him. 

“Gotham needs Batman and Robin, don’t you understand that?” He begs but his mother just won’t hear it. “That’s what the _police_ are for, Tim. This isn’t safe! I can not, in good conscience, let you go back out there knowing there are sociopaths like the Joker on the streets!”

“I’m not going to--” “Your father is already gone, Timothy! I’m not losing you, too!” She interrupts him, the volume and coldness in her voice making his body go rigid. Her chest heaves as she crosses her arms. “Please, Tim. We’re going home. Have a good night, Mr. Wayne.”

She turns and begins to walk away, Alfred leading her back to the stairs that exit the cave.

Tim looks up at Bruce, his cowl pulled back.

“I’m sorry, Tim.”

Tim takes a pleading step forward, opens his mouth to beg Bruce to _do_ something, but the older man interrupts him before he can get anything out.

“I can’t step between you and your mother,” he insists. “You’ve done a great job and you’ve been an incredible partner.” Bruce places a heavy hand on Tim's shoulder, leaving Tim stunned into silence. 

“Hit the showers.”

* * *

  
  


It’s surprisingly easy for Janet to forget that Tim was ever a vigilante but there are some days where it all comes rushing back in full force. Tonight the news talks about a catastrophe somewhere in the world that Tim hyper focuses on, as if he knows the heroes that stopped the crisis. It causes Janet to stop for a moment and remember that Tim most likely _does_ know that group of heroes, given the amount of times she’s read about the Justice League in the papers. With Tim being Batman’s (Bruce’s?) right hand man, there’s no way he wouldn’t have met others.

Janet tries to block it out, chopping the vegetables needed for a side dish she planned for dinner when Tim’s cell rings. She turns a bit, to make sure it doesn’t end up distracting him from his homework. Tim looks up at her sheepishly as he brings the phone down from his ear to the table, putting it on speaker. She wasn’t expecting to hear what she _does_ hear though. She thought maybe it would be a friend, Sebastian, perhaps, asking for some assistance with a physics question (though Janet knew Tim was slacking on those assignments so perhaps not).

“Rob!” A teenage boy’s voice crackles from the speaker. “When are you coming back? It’s getting boring as hell out here.” Tim snorts, “Whenever Cissie comes back.” “No way,” a girl exclaims, speaking over Tim’s laughter, “are you about to insert me into this!”

Janet doesn’t know who Cissie is. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t know who most of Tim’s friends are besides Sebastian and Ariana, though the latter doesn’t come around much due to her parents moving her to an all-girl’s academy. There’s also that other girl but Tim is a little bit secretive about her (which reminds Janet to ask him about her).

“Not funny, mon,” A slightly accented voice replies. “You’d better get down here before we get our butts handed to us!”

“Seriously, who else is going to make back up plans for our back up plans?” Another teenage boy says, talking faster than what Janet can comprehend and she struggles to get all of it. 

Tim laughs again when another girl’s voice claims that she’s “good but not _that_ good” at planning for the worst. And another cries that she misses him. “I’ll be back soon, Greta.”

Janet’s hand stills on the carrot she was about to slice. _I’ll be back soon_. Not if she has anything to say about it. She goes back to chopping the carrots.

Then, she realizes she _does_ have a say in what Tim will do about Robin, as she was the one who forced him to quit. She could very well tell him that he can go back. And it’s clear that Tim’s hurting over the decision she had made _for_ him. Without even consulting him, she’d picked him out of the game like nothing. Janet could tell it was killing him.

Tim isn’t the boy she thought he was anymore. He moves differently, socked feet quiet on the wood floor when they should be pounding as he walks around the house. Sometimes she’ll be doing housework and he’ll appear behind her like a ghost, even though he hadn’t even been in the room minutes before. The whole _Robin_ thing doesn’t turn off for Tim like she’d thought it would, and it most likely never will.

Tim’s conversation with his friends continues on. When she’s done with the vegetables, she wipes her hands with a dish towel and picks up her own phone. She’s had Bruce Wayne’s phone number since she married Jack, having been associated with him due to their companies occasionally working together but she’s never had to use it. 

Until tonight.

**_TO: BRUCE WAYNE_ ** **_  
_ ** **_We need to talk. About Tim._ **

**_[SENT, 17:39]_ **

* * *

  
  


Tim is about to walk down the stairs for a glass of water in the middle of the night when he hears a conversation drifting throughout the hallway.

At first he dismisses it, thinking it could just be his mother and Dana but it’s the middle of the night so they should both be sleeping. His mom doesn’t answer phone calls at this hour either.

He creeps closer, following the sound and comes to a stop at the top of the stairs, looking into the study from the angle he’s crouched at. 

“And... this is what he would really want?” Janet asks, voice barely above a whisper. It’s weird, Tim thinks. Batman is in his mother’s study, towering over her and yet she’s staring at him with the same kind of glower, maybe even matching the Bat’s intense gaze. 

Bruce, in the cowl, nods just slightly enough that to the untrained eye, one would think they imagined the movement but Tim knows Batman, knows Bruce. It’s a _yes_. 

His mother sighs, bringing a hand to her mouth. “Okay. But you listen to me, and listen to me _well_ , Mr. Wayne.” Her voice changes from worried to stone serious in a split second, almost enough to send shivers down Tim’s spine. 

“I need my son back in one piece every night,” she speaks very slowly. “I _need_ you to make him understand that. I can’t lose—”

A beat of silence. Tim’s heart is thumping so hard in his chest it feels as if they could hear it. _Maybe Bruce could_ , Tim muses. _Definitely Kon, if he focused hard enough_. Tim hopes it doesn’t alarm the Kryptonian in Kansas, who should definitely be sleeping since they both have school in the morning. 

“Not Tim,” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what would happen if I lost my baby.”

Tim bites his lip. He’s never doubted that his mother loved him (God knows he’s a total mommy’s boy lately) but to hear her like this? The last time his mother had called him “her baby” was probably when he was a toddler. To hear her talk about him like that again makes his heart warm and he craves the feeling.

He’s _Robin_ . Robin gets knocked down more often than not on patrol, on covert operations, on missions where he _shouldn’t_ make it back but he either has incredible luck or the best teammates in the multiverse that he gets to call his best friends (both, obviously) on his side. Tim Drake, though, is only supposed to be a normal, mediocre teenage boy who takes life one step at a time. At least that’s what his mom wants him to be, now that she knows.

But his mother also knows how important Robin is to him. To Batman. To _Gotham_ . As much as Tim knows his mother wants him to quit the whole vigilante gig, she has this meeting with Bruce instead. Tries to see things from his side and point of view. And that tells Tim that she understands, _truly_ accepts what Robin stands for and that she cares about him too. 

“Your son takes this life very seriously. He’s hard-working and dedicated.” Tim hears his mother inhale to say something but Bruce speaks over her.

“Mrs. Drake, he’s saved countless lives working with me and his friends. I understand you care for him,” Bruce says. “There’s a whole community out there who care for and love your son just as much as you do, and would go to the ends of the earth if anything ever happened to him, including me. He’s always going to be safe. You have my word.”

His mother is silent for a moment. “Okay.”

Tim almost jumps for joy.

“If he returns one night with even just _one_ less hair on his head, I will come for you, Batman or not, Mr. Wayne.” His mother declares, head held high in that stubborn way of hers. Some would say Tim inherited his stubbornness directly from her.

Tim might have imagined the smile on Bruce’s face as he nods in agreement. “I won’t come back to you again, like this.” Bruce takes his leave, out the window he presumably entered in and Tim takes that as his exit as well, creeping back to his room.

He stands at his own window, smiling at the stars, knowing that he’ll be able to be back on Gotham’s streets again.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i HC that tim would still be good friends with ariana and i don't like that she basically faded into obscurity once the writers were done with her. i also included cissie, anita and greta because, as stated, they kinda just got kicked off the face of the earth post-crisis. i know that yj didn't know why tim had left the team when his dad makes him quit robin or even his real name (just by alvin) but i changed it for a bit of perspective on janet's side. tim had a life as robin, as well as outside of it, and he deserves to have both!
> 
> there are some scenes i wrote that didn't make it here to the final cut. i'm gonna clean them up and post them as lil one-shots to the series as additional works! :-)


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